Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is hitting the ground running — at least in terms of its box office grosses as the third installment in James Gunn's trilogy has already broken a franchise record with its Thursday night preview screenings despite shaky projections.

It's being reported that Vol. 3 scored $17.5 million from its Thursday preview screenings. That narrowly beats out Vol. 2 ($17 million) and bests the first Guardians of the Galaxy film ($11.2 million) from 2014.

Disney is likely hoping that the latest Guardians of the Galaxy adventure can continue the trend set by Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania (one of the few things that the film did right). Quantumania opened with the same Thursday night total as Vol. 3 and went on to gross a franchise-best for the Ant-Man series ($106 million). Granted, the film didn't leg out all that well, but it's currently the second highest-grossing 2023 release thus far — something Vol. 3 should be able to top.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the bookend for this MCU iteration of the team. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Bradley Cooper, and Vin Diesel all return in their signature roles. Will Poulter plays Adam Warlock and Chukwudi Iwuji plays the film's lead antagonist, the High Evolutionary. The film also serves James Gunn's swan song as he will now go over to DC full-time to serve as the Kevin Feige-like figure to their DCU. He's running the show with Peter Safran. The first series under Gunn's watch will be Creature Commandos and the first feature film will be Superman: Legacy (which will be written and directed by Gunn).

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is in theaters now.